


Optimistic

by torches



Series: Second Chances/Guilt is a Useless Emotion [3]
Category: Neon Genesis Evangelion
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-09-14
Updated: 2004-09-14
Packaged: 2017-10-10 23:31:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/105638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/torches/pseuds/torches





	Optimistic

A boy sat by the sea's edge, idly swishing his hand around in the reddish-orange liquid. Shinji stared into the LCL. I wonder if I'm touching my mother, he thought. If they're all one body, I suppose I am. But how do I know it's her I'm really touching?

Asuka looked over at him, eye half-open. "Antichrist," she said. "The embodiment of all evil. Should have known all along." She lay on her back, her bandaged arm lying across her chest.

Shinji's lips pressed together. "Just because it fits doesn't mean it's right." He pulled his hand out of the LCL. "It could just be coincidence."

Asuka snorted. "Coincidence. It doesn't exist."

Shinji stared into the red sea. "I hope not."

\--

"We need to find food," Asuka said. She stood staring at the mutely grinning statue of one of the Evangelions. "Did you know that Eva is German for Eve?"

Shinji sat nearby, staring at the same statue. "No, I didn't. What does that have to do with anything?"

"I'm not sure. I think Rei might have had the answer," Asuka said. She looked away from the statue, staring off into the horizon, a rocky expanse of black rocks jutting up against the red sky, broken only by the left half of Lilith's decaying face. "Let's get moving."

Shinji stood up. They began walking.

"I hated my father," Asuka said as they walked. "He left. Everybody does. But he was the first. He left my mother. And then he left me."

"He never cared," Shinji said.

"Of course he did," Asuka said. "I reminded him of my mother."

"Oh." Shinji sighed. "Can you see how much further?" He gazed out over the ruined landscape. "All I see is rock, beach, and sea."

Asuka shrugged. "It's there somewhere," she said. She stopped, exhaling. Asuka turned to face Shinji, her one visible eye riveting on his face. "It's faith. I'm not sure I'm alive. I do know I can feel some things, like hatred and anger and sadness. I convince myself I can put each foot forward. That's enough." Her brown eye swiveled to look out over the sea. "It has to be out there somewhere."

"But you don't think so," Shinji said. He took a step towards Asuka. "You think it's just a delusion."

"I can accept a delusion if it makes me feel good," Asuka said. Her voice betrayed her arrogance. Shinji watched her face. Asuka's mouth pressed into a thin line. "I can, and I will." She turned away and started walking again. Shinji hesitated, then followed.

They walked in silence. Shinji tried to keep pace with Asuka. He failed. Desperation pushed Asuka onward, nipped at her heels like a rabid wolf, inciting ever larger strides. Her breathing quickened, became hoarser. Her hands clenched. Her eye darted from side to side. It has to be here, Asuka thought. I won't let it not be here. I need it.

"I brought food up first," Shinji said, breaking the gulf of silence that spread between them. "Shouldn't I be searching?"

"I'm not going to trust my stomach to the Antichrist," Asuka said.

"Hey, that's coincidence," Shinji said, voice rising. "For all we know, I could be God."

"God could never be that indecisive," Asuka spat. Her voice was hollow and breathless.

Shinji stopped. He said nothing. Asuka paused to look at him. Shinji stared at her solitary brown eye. Asuka turned and kept walking. Shinji watched her go, silent. He looked out over the sea of souls. Rei stared back at him. He let out a shaky breath. He nodded. Rei stood there motionless. He swallowed. When his eyes opened again, she was gone. Shinji turned back to Asuka, swiftly dwindling on the horizon. He paused, looked back over the sea. There was nothing there. He began running after the red figure in the distance. He didn't look back.

"Asuka!" Shinji gasped for air. "Wait!" He stumbled and fell face-first into the sand. The impact knocked all the wind out of him and left him sprawled out on the beach, coughing.

Asuka halted. She looked at him in confusion for a moment. "You –?" She just stood there and stared at him.

"You haven't healed yet," Shinji said when he got his breath back. "You need someone to help you." He stood up, rubbing his back. He brushed the sand off his clothes. "Whatever I am, I'm the only other person here who can."

Asuka looked at him. The confusion faded to mere indifference. "I don't need your help," she said.

Shinji stared at Asuka. He was exhausted. "I won't run," he said. "I can't." He sighed. "I'm sorry."

"For what," Asuka said. Her tone was too flat for questions. "You haven't done anything."

"Exactly. I haven't and I can't." Shinji looked Asuka in the eye, searching for some spark. Something alive. "I'm sorry."

"You can't even help yourself," Asuka said, then turned to keep walking. "You're a fool."

Shinji's fists clenched. "Then you help me," he said, talking just loud enough for her to hear. "Help me."

"Help you save yourself from the nothing you've always been?" Asuka's tone held no emotion. Just cold indifference. "I can't help."

Shinji inhaled sharply –

_"You don't need me. Anyone will do!"_

_"Pathetic."_

– and lunged at Asuka, crashing into her chest. They fell to the ground with a thud. Shinji's eyes were wide and staring. Asuka looked up at him, confusion spread across her face. Shinji pulled his face close to hers. "Help me," he hissed. His hands clenched her shoulders.

Asuka closed her eyes. "Save yourself," she said. "I don't want to be here. And definitely not with you."

Shinji's hands twitched. He moved to strangle Asuka. Her brown eye locked gaze with him. His hands stopped, just brushing the ridge of the plug suit. He stared at her. Then his hands started moving again. He convulsed. He grabbed her head in his hands and kissed her. Asuka made no attempt to stop him.

-She said, I'm more afraid of happiness.-

"You're sick." Asuka's voice was flat. Her tone allowed no disagreements. She lay on her left side, idly rubbing her chest. The plug suit felt rubbery and cold to the touch.

Shinji sat, huddled, a distance away. He stared down at the sand. "I'm sorry."

"That's all you ever do. Can't you react some other way?" Asuka sighed. "All you ever do is apologize."

"It's my fault," Shinji said. "I killed everybody. They're all a puddle of goop now. And I'm alone. You're here, but you're not you. All I did was make the pain worse."

"I thought you wanted the pain," Asuka said.

Shinji made a frustrated, strangled noise. "Not like this. I don't know what I wanted anymore. But I didn't want it to hurt this bad." He hugged his knees.

"It always gets worse," Asuka said. "Forgetting doesn't change reality."

"'I can accept a delusion if it makes me feel better,'" Shinji said. "You said that."

"I was wrong," Asuka said.

"You would never say that." Shinji lifted his head up to look at her back. Red and black crisscrossed, like the sky and the sea. "Not the Asuka I knew."

Asuka ran her hand across the white sand. "I _am_ the Asuka you knew," she said. "It's not my fault if I don't live up to your expectations."

Shinji let his hands fall to the ground. "I can't win," he said. "I always screw up something."

"It's your fault we don't have any food," Asuka said, helpfully tossing more wood on the already-massive bonfire of Shinji's vanities. "And why I'm blind in one eye. It's all your fault." Her voice never rose or fell. She stated simple fact.

Shinji sighed. "I'm sorry, Asuka."

Asuka snorted. "You're never really sorry. Otherwise you wouldn't keep making the same mistakes."

"I can't stop myself," Shinji said.

Asuka rolled onto her bandaged arm. She stared at Shinji. "You have no control. You just let things happen. And you wonder why nobody praises you. You don't stop the bad things and you're never there for the good things."

"Why are you telling me this, Asuka?" Shinji said.

"I don't know," Asuka said. She rolled onto her back and traced the outline of her bandaged hand. "I just am. It's probably something you made me do anyway."

Shinji lowered his head. He looked up at her from underneath his eyebrows. "I'm sorry."

Asuka murmured something inaudible. She idly ran her hand through the sand. "I wish we had found some food."

"Sorry," Shinji said.

Asuka's hand paused. "Stop that." She continued tracing patterns in the sand.

Shinji stared at her helplessly. "I don't know how," he said.

"Learn," Asuka said. "It isn't hard."

"I caused Third Impact," Shinji said. "I'll be apologizing for that for the rest of my life."

"Only to yourself," Asuka said. "Nobody else will care."

Shinji turned to face her, his legs shifting around on the beach. "You're hungry, tired, and confused," he said. "You just want something to make you feel human, don't you?" His voice was soft. "I destroyed your trust in yourself, didn't I?"

"How can I trust my judgment when my memories aren't mine, Shinji?" Asuka stared at the red LCL. She rested her bandaged arm on her knee. "They killed me, those white demons killed me, and instead of Heaven, I'm stuck here on an empty shell of a planet – with you." Her bandaged arm clenched at the air. "I can't remember my favorite color. College is a fuzzy blur. There are gaps where there shouldn't be. I played the violin, and I don't remember when I started." She bit her lip. "Not only that. I remember the feeling of LCL on my naked body as I floated mindlessly in a tank somewhere. I remember drinking beer and getting drunk. I never did those things. That wasn't me."

Shinji looked at her. His brown hair fell over his left eye, obscuring it from view. "I . . . I'm sorry."

"You're a fool, Third Children. A fool." Asuka stood up. "Stupid Shinji." She looked down at him, then out at the sea.

Shinji cocked his head, staring at her. "What are you doing?" he said.

Asuka said nothing. She darted away, diving into the sea of souls. She broke the surface with a splash. Shinji watched her, paralyzed from the suddenness of it all. He stared for what seemed like an eternity. She didn't come up for air.

Shinji never moved.

There was a splash, a ripple in the water, and Asuka was carried out of the water. Asuka gasped, greedily gulping down air. Her savior held her tightly, carefully. Shinji's eyes locked with hers. Asuka lay still in the firm embrace. Her unbandaged eye stared up in a vacuous, terrified recognition.

Shinji stood up slowly. He watched as Asuka was set down to stand, unsteadily, on her own feet. He did not smile. He only stood there, helplessly trying to think of something to say that made it all make sense. Finally, he said the only thing he could.

"Hello, Rei."


End file.
